World Championships Starts - Feehally in Semis

The 2012 World Climbing Championships started in Paris yesterday. With over 500 climbers from more than 60 countries competing, and over 15,000 spectators, the competition is set to be one of the biggest in climbing's history.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will be in attendance to assess the suitability of climbing's inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games.

"The World Championships is a key event in the IFSC bid for Olympic inclusion in 2020, and there will be several IOC delegates present to watch the event and judge how good competition climbing would be as an Olympic sport."

There are four sections to the competition: lead, bouldering, speed and paraclimbing.

The men's bouldering qualifications started at 9am yesterday in Paris, followed by women's lead qualifications.

British climber Ned Feehally qualified in 15th place in the bouldering and is through to the semi-final.

The full list of British climbers competing are Gill Peet, Diane Merrick, Katy Whittaker, Helen Haldenby, Dave Barrans, Jon Partridge, Adam Watson, James Garden and Ned Feehally. As well as Fran Brown, Reanne Rackton and Samantha Bate-Jackson who are competing in the Para-Climbing event.

This morning's competition kicks off with the men's lead qualifications followed by the women's bouldering qualifications.

"To help the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) in their bid for Olympic inclusion please go to their Sport Climbing 2020 page on Facebook and click like. Increasing the number of fans of this page is also key to the IFSC Olympic bid."